Unknown Means (30 page)

“He retained some motor skills.” The young woman spoke with professional clarity. “He can draw, as you see, he can feed himself a little. No speech, no control of bodily functions. Generally easygoing.”

Evelyn moved closer. He could not respond, but she couldn’t act as if he were not a human being either. “Hi, Craig. My name is Evelyn.”

Not the slightest muscle twitched in his face, though his eyes had followed her when she moved.

“I’m interested in your pictures. They’re very nice.”

No reaction.

She had no idea where to go from there. Speaking to an actual

child racked her nerves, much less a man who now had less than the mental capacity of one. “Is it okay if I look at your crayons? I won’t take them. I just want to look at them.”

No reaction.

A nightstand sat next to the bed, and a small wardrobe had been tucked into the corner. The top of it had been filled with two football trophies, a teddy bear, and a dust-covered video game joystick, the remains of a former life. “Where are his supplies?”

“In the activity room. Every patient has their own stuff in a little locker.”

“Can we go there?”

The girl twirled her ponytail. This was turning into more of a project than she had bargained for, but curiosity battled the caution on her face. “Sure, I guess.”

“Bye, Craig. It was nice to meet you. I might be back.”

His gaze switched back to the window, either dismissing her or simply losing interest.

Outside, Evelyn trotted to keep up with her guide. “What happened to him?”

“Car accident, I guess. I’m not really sure. Come on, we’ll take the stairs, they’re always working on that stinking elevator. Activities are on the second floor.”

Evelyn followed her into the stairwell with a fluttery feeling, remembering the last time, flying down the steps after someone who turned around and nearly killed her. “How long has he been like that?”

“About two years, I think. He moved into that room right about the time I started working here, but he could have been in a different room before that, so I don’t know.”

“Does his father come and visit him a lot?”

“He doesn’t have a father. His mother comes all time.” They emerged into a lower hallway and crossed it to a wide, bright room filled with tables and chairs. Boxes and plastic crates lined the walls

on each side. The aide pulled down a milk crate with “Sinclair, Craig” written in marker on its edge. “Here’s his stuff.”

Evelyn excavated the crate, filled with construction paper, paintbrushes, paints, a coloring book, pieces of yarn, and a bottle of glue. She also found a slender shoe box full of crayons and a roll of paper similar to her items of evidence. “Does Brynwood provide this stuff?”

“The paints and the construction paper. Families bring in the extra stuff.”

“Did his mother give him this?” Evelyn held up the roll.

“Dunno.”

“Does she come in every night? Will she be here soon?”

“Usually about this time, but she’s out of town this week. She told me that last week so we’d know, in case Craig got agitated or something, missing her.” The girl sat on the table, propping her feet on a chair. “It’s sad, though.”

“What is?” Hell, what wasn’t sad about an incapacitated, otherwise healthy young man?

“He won’t miss her. He doesn’t notice if she comes or not. She should know that, but I guess she convinces herself that he’s aware of more than he’s really aware of, you know what I mean?”

“And you’re sure he has no father?”

“No.” But she drew out the vowel, the way Marissa had.

“It’s very important. I wish I were at liberty to tell you how important it is.”

“I think his parents are divorced. The day I started here, Mrs.

Ellis was orienting me, and Craig’s mother stalked into the office and ripped Mrs. Ellis up one side and down the other. I guess she found a man in Craig’s room. Mrs. Ellis shooed me out, but I heard Craig’s mom screaming about a court order and parental rights and he was not ever to be allowed here. I remember it because it was the first—and not the last, let me tell you!—family fight I saw here, and because I’ve never seen anyone yell at Mrs. Ellis and live.”

Evelyn ripped a piece of paper off the roll and began to mark it with samples from the crayon box, trying to choose colors similar to those used in the drawings left by the victims. “So his father is out there somewhere but not allowed to visit?”

“Yeah . . .” The aide glanced around the room and, finding it empty except for them, went on in a conspiratorial tone. “But I see a guy with him sometimes, after Mrs. Ellis’s rounds, when normal visiting hours are over. I assume it’s his father. I don’t know how he gets in there, because the receptionist wouldn’t let him in and all the other doors are locked.”

“What does he look like?”

“I dunno. I just get a glimpse of him—just sort of tall, not real heavy.”

“Is he white?”

“Yeah.”

“What color is his hair?”

The girl screwed her face up, trying to remember. “Maybe light brown?”

“How does he dress?”

“Slouchy clothes. Dark colors, when I saw him.”

“And you’ve never asked him who he is?”

“No. It’s always, like, the middle of the night and I’m doing something else. Then when I go back, he’s gone. But he leaves the paper and crayons and sometimes chocolate bars for Craig.”

“And you’ve never reported this?”

“I’m not the security guard.”

Evelyn raised an eyebrow. The girl flushed even as her jaw tightened into a stubborn line. “When my parents split, my mother spent three years trying to turn my sister and me against our dad. I figure this guy’s got a right to visit his son whether Mrs. Sinclair likes it or not. Craig never seemed upset or agitated about it, and hasn’t he got the right to see his father?”

“That’s a good point,” Evelyn said, replacing the milk crate in its

assigned space. “Will Craig ever get better? Is there any chance he will improve?”

The aide shook her head, whipping the ponytail around her freckled face.

“He can’t learn, or even make limited progress?” Evelyn pressed, her heart sinking. What must it be like, to have every avenue of your life closed off forever?

“I asked the doctor that once. He said to let Mrs. Sinclair think whatever gives her comfort, but there’s no chance. Craig might live another fifty years and he won’t change one bit. It’s pretty sad, if you ask me—at least the old people here got to live their lives first. He didn’t have much of one. You know,” she added, as if the thought had just occurred to her, “I think he’s only a few years older than me.”

Evelyn let the girl have a moment or two to thank her lucky stars that she hadn’t been disabled and bedridden before she turned old enough to drink, and then said, “I promise I will not tell anyone what you’ve told me or that you took me to see Craig. But I really have to talk to Mrs. Sinclair.”

The aide guided her back into the hallway. “I can’t give you her number, if that’s what you’re asking. Anyway, she’s not home.”

“But I— Well. Hmm.” The girl was right. Riley and David might have to get a warrant simply to find out the woman’s phone number. Or they could just wait for her to come visit her son.

“When is she getting back?”

“Maybe tomorrow? I’m not sure. She said a week.” The aide delivered Evelyn to the front desk and squared her shoulders, as if she had completed a difficult task.

“Mrs. Ellis is going to kick your butt,” the receptionist told the aide.

“Only if some bitch rats me out.” The aide fixed her coworker with a gaze like cast iron. “And who would do that?”

C H A P T E R

29

RILEY, WHERE’S DAVID? I TRIED HIS NEXTEL AND HIS

pager, but he hasn’t called back.”

“He said he had to go out for a minute.” Crackles over the transmission blanked out every other letter of his words, but Evelyn made out the gist. “I assumed he was getting our usual order over at Barrister’s. Why?”

“I’ve located our artist.” She summed up what she had learned in the past half hour, including the name of Craig’s mother.

“And where is she?”

“In Cancún,” she repeated—shouting, as if that would help.

“Her first vacation in five years, according to the care center staff.

She should be back tomorrow.”

“And you think this mysterious father figure is our killer?”

“I’m following his trail and it led me here. I don’t understand it any more than you do, but there we are. I’ve already approached the indomitable Mrs. Ellis, who told me to go pound sand. Or is that salt? Salt would be more appropriate in this case.”

“Evelyn, are you losing it?”

“Lost it years ago,” she admitted. “She says she can’t divulge any patient information, period. I need you to get a search warrant. I also need you to put someone on Craig Sinclair’s room. His father

will almost certainly come back to visit. If he’s planning on killing someone else, he’ll need another picture.”

“And we’re basing all this on a drawing by a mentally, um, chal-lenged young man who can’t speak?”

“It’s not a drawing. It’s the killer’s calling card. It’s his testimony to us.”

“What does it mean?”

“I haven’t the slightest idea.”

“It will be tough to get a judge excited about that,” the detective warned.

“This woman knows everything we need to know about this killer. I know it. All we have to do is ask, but we can’t because we can’t find her.”

“How about the phone book?” he joked.

Evelyn slapped the copy sitting in her passenger’s seat. “Guess what? She’s not listed. I called every initial and female name under Sinclair in the phone book.”

“And we haven’t run across anyone named Sinclair in this investigation. At least I haven’t. I’ll check all the apartment building employee lists from the three homicides again, but it really doesn’t ring a bell.”

“Not just who actually works in the building, Riley—it could be someone who works for the realty companies that own the apartments.”

“The salt mine owns their own building . . . I think. Okay, check them all for a guy named Sinclair.”

“I hate to say it, but it’s possible that won’t help. Mrs. Sinclair could have changed back to her maiden name after the divorce. None of the nurses know her first name, and Mrs. Ellis wouldn’t tell me.

On the phone I just asked for Craig’s mother. Maybe some of the Sinclairs I called are relatives, but she told them not to give out any information about her.”

If Mrs. Sinclair went to the trouble of changing her son’s name as

well, plus banned her ex from the care center, she really did not want any contact with him. On the other hand, the husband’s name might be Sinclair and she simply wasn’t listed in the phone book. Evelyn favored the first theory. This sounded like a very bitter divorce.

“We’ll do what we can,” Riley promised. “But Craig’s mom will probably return from sunnier climes by the time we could get a warrant signed anyway. By the way, Robert is busting Marissa out of medical prison as we speak.”

“What?”

“The swelling has gone down and she’s healthy otherwise. She’s being discharged.”

“What about the guard?” Marissa would return to the supposedly high-security Riviere, right where Grace Markham had been brutally murdered at her own kitchen table. Evelyn wished current medical insurance allowed for longer hospital stays . . . but then, the hospital hadn’t been any safer, had it? Her face burned where the killer had struck her.

“We’ll put a policewoman in the apartment with them. The two kids weren’t happy about it, of course. They are almost newlyweds.”

“Good.”

“But I don’t know how long we can keep her there. Two days at the most, our sergeant says.”

Craig’s mother would have returned by then, and at least their killer would have a name. It might not make him any easier to catch, of course, but Evelyn would feel a lot better.

He’s just a man, David had said. Not magic.

Though he seemed to appear and disappear as if he were. He got in and out of the Riviere. He got in and out of Brynwood. He got in and out of the salt mine, leaving his messages, his testimony—

“I have an idea,” she said.

“What?”

“Never mind, you won’t like it. Good luck with the warrant.”

She hung up, pulled out a card, and dialed the number printed on it.

It took a moment to go through. She studied the building in front of her, wondering how Craig’s sad, doting father meshed with the murderer and rapist she’d been chasing. Was it the same man?

How did his crimes relate to Craig?

The line clicked. “Clio Helms.”

“Ms. Helms? It’s Evelyn James. I have a favor to ask.”

C H A P T E R

30

THE PLAIN DEALER BUILDING HAD BEEN AT THE CORner of East Eighteenth and Superior for as long as Evelyn could remember. She parked in a Cleveland State student lot off Payne and hiked through a light drizzle to the glass double doors. The receptionist had gone home for the day, but Evelyn’s escort waited by the empty desk.

Ten minutes later she stood in a room filled with reporters’

desks from end to end, broken up by filing cabinets, blue recycling containers, and a coffeemaker. It resembled the homicide unit in both lack of decor and presence of clutter. The reporters even favored worn blazers, like the cops.

The newspaper offices, however, had more paper. Lots more. In the modern world of PCs, Internet, and e-mail, every desk seemed walled in with two-foot stacks of files, pads, and sheets of paper.

Some had started piles on the floor. If a strong wind hit the room, the resulting mess would be irreversible.

“You mentioned the Archive before,” Evelyn said without pre-amble.